


A Symbol for the Belt

by Auntaggie



Category: The Expanse (TV)
Genre: Episode: s03e11 Fallen World, Gen, Missing Scene, Post-Fallen World, injured Drummer, probably not 3x12 compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-06-25
Packaged: 2019-05-28 10:34:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15046982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Auntaggie/pseuds/Auntaggie
Summary: Drummer wakes up following the events of 3x11 Fallen World





	A Symbol for the Belt

Camina awoke in pain. Every part of her hurt, her leg and hip one long line that ached. Her eyes were heavy as she opened them. She took a deep breath, savouring the cold recycled air of the medbay. She hadn’t expected to wake again, but she had. It wasn’t over yet. 

The noise around her is muted, everything fuzzy from those pashang drugs. Camina looks at the med cuff on her arm in disgust, slowly tapping to remove the thing. Her eyes squint at the display as she struggles to find the right commands. Her head dizzy from the effort already. 

A hand gently covers hers, stops her from inputting any more commands. Her eyes focus on the man in front of her slowly. 

“Hey, hey, you don’t want do that ke?” A medic, in bloody overalls. The sight makes her stop. That’s her people’s blood, maybe her own, and she brought them here. She has led her people to death, a graveyard the Behemoth might never leave. She can’t wait here for death. She’s tired of waiting.

“I am your Captain,” she says in the strongest voice she can manage. “And I am getting out of this bed.”

The medic looks away. She know pity when she sees it, even if he turns his head. It makes her angry, more determined to get up and get on with her job, it always had. She follows his eyes, as they travel look down the bed. Not as bad as she thought, at least they managed to save the leg. Or they’re trying. 

“Capt’n, you ain’t getting up. You na kang walk on that leg.”

She looks at the useless appendage, the cast from her knee to hip, bandages across her stomach. She got that tight feeling along her side, that makes her think they had to cut into her, again. 

“Report. What is happening out there?”

“Capt’n Ashford, he spun the drum. We got one third g.”

“Acting Capt’n Ashford,” Camina corrected. 

“Ya Sir. I will tell command that you are awake, but please, Capt’n, you gotta stay here. Do not try to stand on that.”

Camina nodded at the cuff. “Take this off at least. I slept enough.”

The medic sighed, “I can stop the drugs but you need fluids, and we need to monitor your vitals.” Camina says nothing as he works.

She looks around her, at her wounded. They’re not all hers, she notices immediately. A Martian uniformed soldier lies on the bed next to hers, and she isn’t the only one. There are Belters and inners helping the wounded; Earthers, Martians and Belters alike. She sees a stack of crates beside the door, emblazoned with the MCRN logos. 

Everyone looks the worse for wear, even the medics have bruises of their own and the Inners’ pristine uniforms are stained with blood. Everyone looks tired, but they’re getting on with the work that needs to be done. 

“What the Inyalowda doing here?”

“Ashford, he invited them to bring their wounded, so they can heal,” the medic says quietly before he leaves. 

Camina continues to watch everyone around her, cautious and curious. She’s always been good at reading a room, knowing when a situation was about to turn bad. This many people who hate each other in one place, it should be inevitable. Only a year ago Earth and Mars were at war, and the OPA were considered terrorists by both. That isn’t what she sees here. There isn’t going to be a fight. These people haven’t got any fight left in them, not even the Belters. 

  


Ashford takes his time coming down to see her, but it’s what she expected. The acting Captain would only enjoy the opportunity to keep her waiting. He’s walks slowly towards her, unsteady on his feet. The pain each step cost him is obvious on his face. 

“Oye Captain Ashford,” she sneers. “You been busy.”

“Acting Captain,” he corrects her. The man has always been in good humour, even when he was trying to undercut her command, but he isn’t smiling. His mouth is a thin line, determined, working through the pain, same as her. “I got to step up while my Captain gets her beauty sleep.”

He tries to joke but the effort of sitting in the chair next to her bed makes him grimace. 

“The Inners needs to see us as one people, and this is a good start,” he adds as he leans back, trying to find a comfortable seat. 

“If we survive, you look worse than me old man.”

That gets her a smile. Ashford always looks like the wolf she saw in a children’s story when he smiles. He’s a predator, she knew this. She knew lots of men like him before, on Ceres.

“I am not dead yet, and more surprising neither are you Capt’n. You tried, oh you tried your best to die, for me,” he snorts out a painful laugh. 

“Surprised me too.” 

“Beltalowda need a symbol, something more than a uniform.” Camina rolls her eyes. Death was supposed to put an end to this conversation. She had heard enough of Ashford’s ideas. 

“They need people to show them what it mean to be a Belter in this new world. They need strong, young men and women, to show them Inners that they should respect us, value us as equals. They don’t need a bitter old smuggler like me,” he coughs into an old rag, holding his side. She lets him catch his breath, watches his take the water from her bedside before he continues. 

“But you Camina, little dock rat off Ceres, not afraid of Dawes or anyone in the galaxy. You can be what they need. You can survive this forsaken place, bring our people home, bring their people home too. Be the hero the Belt needs.”

She laughs bitterly at him, wonders if its hysteria. Maybe the air recyclers have gone done, and she got hypoxia from a lack of oxygen. Ashford says she’s a hero. This must be a hallucination. 

“We had enough of martyrs in my time, people who died for the cause. Oh you wouldn’t even remember their names. Good Belta men and women, taken too soon. They died for the Belt but no one know that. We have to change, Camina. Not change ourselves, but change the way we do things, change the way we see Mars and Earth. They are no longer our oppressors. They’re not our enemy.”

Ashford leans closer, grunting at the pain such a small movement caused him. He should be in bed, same as Camina.

“We help them today, so that tomorrow they owe us. And that is one favour, you never want to call in Capt’n.”

“I haven’t helped anyone today,” she says bitterly. “My people are dying and I am supposed to do nothing.”

He shakes his head as he uses the side of her bed to leverage himself back to standing. He stays there for a moment, catching his breath, staring at her. “Look after yourself, Capt’n. Today’s not over yet.”

  


She’s not sure how long she spends lying in that bed. She waits until the pains grow to the point where every position hurts, she has no comfort. The pressure of the sheet on top of her hurts. The dull ache has become sharper and sharper and she’s sure that all the drugs have worn off. 

“Hey! Someone get me a stick. I’m no good to anyone in this bed.”

The Inners look at her likes she’s mad, but she’s not talking to them. The Belter medics share uncertain looks.

“That was an order,” she says pushing herself up until she half sitting, dangerously close to falling. She glares at her silent audience, daring anyone of them to challenge her. 

A medic eventually produces two crutches, muttering curses her Captain ignores, as she helps Camina from her bed. 

She puts the crutches under her arm and stands there for a moment waiting for the dizziness to pass, before she hobbles to the med cabinet slowly, takes two painkiller pens. She almost loses her balance, putting one in her pocket while she holds the other between her teeth. With the crutch under her arm again, she injects the painkiller. The relief is not instantaneous, but she knows it will be enough to get her to command. It’s where she needs to be.

She finds a sight she never thought to see when she walks onto the bridge. Ashford talking to commanders from the UNN and MCRN. Belters working around them like it’s a normal day. The repairs have already begun. There’s still blood on the floor, the walls but the mechanical repairs have begun and that’s all that matters now, saving as many people as they can. No matter where they came from or what uniform they wear. 

A smattering of applause greets her arrival. Belters clapping, banging their tools against the metal of the walls, shouting out encouragement to their Captain. She leans on her one good leg, lessening the painful pressure of the crutches on her arms. She’s sweating from the effort it’s taken to get her here, but the simple movement of wiping the sweat from her forehead would see her topple over and that’d only get her sent back to the medbay.

“Get back to work!” she shouts, but she can’t help the small twitch of her lips. As the noises dies down, and the hollers stop, she struggles forward again, gritting through every painful step before she can lean against the console. Ashford on her right hand side, smiling smugly.

She hands him one of her crutches, pulling out the second painkiller pen and placing it in front of him. She takes her crutch back from him, already feeling unsteady on her feet. “Take it. You are no good to the Belt if you are dead.”

“Yes Captain,” he nods, for once not fighting her orders. They turn to the Inners, and it’s exactly what he wanted, a united front, one warrior, a symbol of the Belt. They have sacrificed so much to get here, to have a seat at this table. Did the Inners see the wolf in Ashford’s smile, or did he just look like an old fool grinning in the face of death?

He got what he want. She was never going to tell him he was right. Not even if they survived this place. She still wasn’t sure he was right, but they were here now and they had to make the best of that. 

And she was never going to wear his pashang uniform.

**Author's Note:**

> My first published fic.  
> There isn't enough Expanse works out there, so if I made any technological mistakes or errors in terminology or langBelta, let me know.


End file.
